"I don't see too much difference between Revolver and Rubber Soul," George Harrison once said. "To me, they could be Volume One and Volume Two."

i'm not sure about that.i don't want to question georges' wisdom on beatle matters,of course not,but i don't know if the albums sound very similar?perhaps george was implying that it was a very good writing and recording period around the two albums?i think he said he enjoyed the recording of the two albums,which is in stark contrast to peppers,where he was far more withdrawn.however,we have yet to get to that stage.

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......."but tonight,i just wanna stay in,and be with you"..............

One of The Beatles, I believe George or Paul, called the albums Rubber Soul 1 and Rubber Soul 2.

Yeah, I never agreed with George on that one.For me, it's mainly because of the development in the John songs across the two albums that Revolver is a leap forward from Rubber Soul.He goes from the slower, more acoustic sounds of Norwegian Wood, In My Life and Girl to the electric guitar sounds and trippy vocals of She Said She Said, Tomorrow Never Knows and And Your Bird Can Sing. It's these John songs that make Revolver such a great LP for me, only just ahead of RS, but ahead nonetheless.

George is also showing a marked development and this is proven by the fact that he gets three songs on Revolver, up from just one on RS, and these three include Love You To, which is way different to anything else they've attempted previously.

The Paul songs, however, could pretty much be switched across the two albums without anyone noticing - sonically they seem to fit into both camps. He seems to be showing less development song-wise and in the recording studio than his two bandmates (although Paperback Writer from the same sessions is certainly a step forward). They are all still great songs, but if you look at the Paul songs across RS and Revolver then, yes, George could be on to something with his Vol 1 and Vol 2 quote.

mmmmmm,not sure peter.i think pauls' writing around this period was second to none and probably the strongest in the band.when todd reveiws revolver we can share more opinions.lots of stuff paul did on revolver was a big leap also, in my opinion.but yes....lets say that john was at a peak here in 65/66(another of my opinions)and george was holding his own,although i do not get the big attraction to 'if i needed someone',a song i always found slightly dull when up against 'think for yourself'.songs like 'nowhere man','in my life','girl',you would have to really go some to top these absolute corkers,and all on the same album.not to mention 'norweigan wood' or 'the word'.crikey,scary scary good album.then pauls' stuff on top as well?no wonder people put rubber soul in their favourite beatle albums.this is why i always argue rubber souls' corner,i have done it in threads before and i will continue to do so.the only filler i can see is 'wait' (which is a strong filler) and 'what goes on' (which is ringo's bit and that is o.k).the album never got tired for me.it is there in my top 3,and i like all of the albums the band released.

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......."but tonight,i just wanna stay in,and be with you"..............

mmmmmm,not sure peter.i think pauls' writing around this period was second to none and probably the strongest in the band.when todd reveiws revolver we can share more opinions.lots of stuff paul did on revolver was a big leap also, in my opinion.but yes....lets say that john was at a peak here in 65/66(another of my opinions)and george was holding his own,although i do not get the big attraction to 'if i needed someone',a song i always found slightly dull when up against 'think for yourself'.songs like 'nowhere man','in my life','girl',you would have to really go some to top these absolute corkers,and all on the same album.not to mention 'norweigan wood' or 'the word'.crikey,scary scary good album.then pauls' stuff on top as well?no wonder people put rubber soul in their favourite beatle albums.this is why i always argue rubber souls' corner,i have done it in threads before and i will continue to do so.the only filler i can see is 'wait' (which is a strong filler) and 'what goes on' (which is ringo's bit and that is o.k).the album never got tired for me.it is there in my top 3,and i like all of the albums the band released.

Oh yeah, I'm not trying to put RS down - I absolutely love it - it's just that Revolver is more my kind of thing, coz I'm into that kind of "She Said She Said" guitar sound. If I ever made my own album I would want the guitars to sound like they do on Revolver.

And I'm also not putting down Paul's songwriting - Here There and Everywhere, for example, is one of my all-time favourite songs by anyone, ever. I just think that he was possibly sticking a little more to the tried-and-tested formula through RS and Revolver and then he opened up more for Pepper, where John and George were happy to be more experimental on record well before that.

To think that Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper were written and recorded within less than two years of each other - there are bands now that don't even put out one album every two years never mind three of the greatest albums ever.Rubber Soul is a hugely important album for The Beatles because it took them away from the moptop Beatles, yet it was still commercially successful, so it opened them up to go on and achieve even greater things. They knew the public were still behind them and could go with their experimentation in the studio. If RS had been a commercial flop then maybe Revolver/Pepper etc never would have happened.

yeah,good answer.i don't think the guitar sound on revolver has ever been bettered.....i am not an electric guitar player so i don't know too much,but that lovely,valvey slightly overloaded sound is amazing.you are also probably correct in stating that john and george were more experimental than paul at that time but let's not forget that they were paul's loops there on tomorrow never knows,he would have been in there with a big hand and a big shout.i also never thought about the trio of soul/revolver/peppers being within a two year period.incredible.the leaps made were astounding really....from dizzy miss lizzy to strawberry fields in about a year and a half,anyone?great answer peter.....thumbs up buddy.

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......."but tonight,i just wanna stay in,and be with you"..............

I think that Rubber Soul was John's peak as a songwriter ("Norwegian Wood", "In My Life", "Nowhere Man", "Girl") while Revolver was Paul's peak ("Eleanor Rigby", "Here, There And Everywhere", "For No One", "Got To Get You Into My Life"). I love John's tracks on Revolver (actually "Tomorrow Never Knows" is my favourite song ever), but they stand out more because of their innovative sound than because of the songwriting ("I'm Only Sleeping", "She Said She Said"), and some of them are just fillers ("And Your Bird Can Sing", "Doctor Robert"). I said this in another thread, I think that Rubber Soul is the album with the best songs while Revolver is sonically the most revolutionary album ever.

And I'm also not putting down Paul's songwriting - Here There and Everywhere, for example, is one of my all-time favourite songs by anyone, ever. I just think that he was possibly sticking a little more to the tried-and-tested formula through RS and Revolver and then he opened up more for Pepper, where John and George were happy to be more experimental on record well before that.

That's just the way I see it too Peter. John's contributions to Revolver are the ones that make me sit up and take notice...Paul's, superb as they (mostly) are, do not seem to leap forwards from the previous album in the same way and in some cases would sit comfortably on Rubber Soul or even (dare I say this?) Help! Didn't John and George embrace LSD about a year earlier than Paul? McCartney's sense of hesitancy...trepidation even... is almost palpable.

That's not to say it's an entirely bad thing by the way... you could do much, much worse than stick to writing gorgeous love songs. And an albumsworth full of 'Tomorrow Never Knows' style experimentation would have been unlistenable back then.

But whereas John and Paul took the best influences from one another into their own respective tracks on Rubber Soul ( McCartneyesque Lennon and Lennonesque McCartney gave that album a wonderfully rounded, coherent, integrated feel) clear blue water opened up between them on Revolver. Lennon's stuff sounded like nothing before and the overall flavour of Revolver, though brilliant, was much more disjointed. Listening to 'She Said She Said' and 'Good Day Sunshine' is like listening to two different albums, they don't have the same overall feel to them like the tracks throughout Rubber Soul do. And that's even before we get to George! Revolver pulls in at least three different directions at once and I'm never really ready for that until The White Album where, on a grander scale sprawled across a lavish double LP set, it works much better.

By the way, thanks to Bobber for the voting link...Rubber Soul beat Revolver 9 - 4 for me. It's obviously a flawed system putting the two running sequences head to head (and with a very limited +/- 2 range to vote on) if there was an "overall" vote button I suspect RS would be even further ahead for me.

A couple of contentious points to finish on...

Rubber Soul is far more like a vastly improved, deeper, richer, more mature and well polished "Help!" Volume Two than a "Revolver" Volume One in my opinion. Revolver is just so different to every album before or since (and, though stupendously good, is for me their most overrated album by quite some margin). But check out those moptops in the "Help!" movie 'Intermission' in their suede jackets larking about amongst the bluebells...they could be from Rubber Soul. By Revolver there were big collared paisley shirts and tinted granny glasses. The changes were much more obvious.

And Revolver must have the worst, most amateurishly doodled, dull, cobbled-together kid's scrapbook mishmash type LP cover they ever allowed to be put out (yes, I know it's some people's favourite). Sorry Klaus, I think it's bloody awful!!

I think we all tend to give full credit of a song writing, recording and production only to the main writer of the song. As if all the innovation of John's songs in Revolver depended only on him and not on the other Beatles and George Martin. Sure, John was more opened to experimentation than any other Beatle (and that's why he's my favourite), but the others also gave their contributions either by the way they played their instruments or giving ideas (and John was more opened to other's ideas than Paul). That's why lately I changed my mind about how we must judge the artists about their songs: the songwriting is full credit to its author, but the sound depends on every member of the band and the producer. For example, if John's songs from Revolver were recorded the same way the songs were recorded in Rubber Soul, they wouldn't have been as resonant as they were. On the other side, I find John's Rubber Soul contributions as resonant by themselves, brilliant songwriting; I mean, they were also cleverly recorded and produced, but they are better songs in my opinion.

i have to say that these opinions have absolutely floored me.i would have put my house on most fans favouring revolver over rubber soul,but it seems that isn't the case.i am very surprised at this.i do feel a lot of revolvers' charm is in the sound....those lovely guitars,pauls' bass a little more prominent,and ringos' drum sound is lovely and sharp compared to the more pudding sound of rubber soul.i thought revolver had the edge songs-wise when i put them side by side with rubber souls'.......well,it just goes to show that my wisdom isn't all that!!what a fantastic thread,i am loving this.

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......."but tonight,i just wanna stay in,and be with you"..............

nimrod

I think that Rubber Soul was John's peak as a songwriter ("Norwegian Wood", "In My Life", "Nowhere Man", "Girl") while Revolver was Paul's peak ("Eleanor Rigby", "Here, There And Everywhere", "For No One", "Got To Get You Into My Life"). I love John's tracks on Revolver (actually "Tomorrow Never Knows" is my favourite song ever), but they stand out more because of their innovative sound than because of the songwriting ("I'm Only Sleeping", "She Said She Said"), and some of them are just fillers ("And Your Bird Can Sing", "Doctor Robert").

I absolutely agree with this hombre..

Revolver for me, is very much Pauls album. I was trying to say in my post earlier that Paul was the one who wasnt 'moving on' much but the melodies he wrote on Revolver we gobsmackingly superb, very very strong, whereas Johns songs were quite weak (melodywise).

That's just the way I see it too Peter. John's contributions to Revolver are the ones that make me sit up and take notice...Paul's, superb as they (mostly) are, do not seem to leap forwards from the previous album in the same way and in some cases would sit comfortably on Rubber Soul or even (dare I say this?) Help!

Yes! This comment says a lot. It even rehashes my opinion that HELP! and Rubber Soul are the albums that should be compared and that HELP! was the true turning point for them.

You guys are killing me. I'm sitting here, biting my nails because I want to talk about Revolver and some comparisons, but it would ruin the whole review. I'll get it up as soon as possible.